The Brothers' War
by Veriform
Summary: In circumstances unspecified, Iroh is forced to confront his brother and do what must be done.  Graphic violence.  Comments much appreciated.


Iroh faced his brother across the worn flagstones of the royal plaza, shadowed by the Fire Lord's palace in all its oppressive splendor. The Fire Sages, ancient and crabbed, eyes webbed with cataracts and hands wracked by palsy, looked on from the steps of the palace. Flames burned in tiered braziers to their either side, rising like the wings of a phoenix. _How age takes us all, _Iroh thought.

Ozai stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his long black hair caught by the volcanic breeze. He had always been handsome. A beautiful man, but shameless, and arrogant. It saddened Iroh to see his brother so debased, to see the mantle of the Fire Lord brought so low by Ozai's madness. To raise a hand against one's family...Iroh closed his eyes and inhaled, sliding easily into the loose, dynamic stance he had learned so long ago from the last true masters of Firebending. Some things needed to be done. _Some things answer only to destiny._ He opened his eyes and began to breathe. In and out, stoke and damp. Let the flames build.

"I knew you'd come crawling back," said Ozai quietly. The bloody light of the comet threw long shadows over the plaza. Ozai shed his robes, throwing them aside without a thought. Fine cloth, red and rich. "Jealousy must have been a bitter draught to swallow for all these long, unhappy years."

"I was never jealous, brother," said Iroh. "I would have given you the throne, if you had only asked. I would have given you anything."

Ozai's expression did not change, but Iroh saw the cold fire come to life behind his brother's eyes. "You're weak," said Ozai. He bit out the words, spit flying from his mouth. His golden eyes narrowed. "You've always been weak. _I _ was strong." He slid into his own opening stance, his form flawless as a cut diamond. "Look at me now."

The Sages rang their gongs.

Ozai struck first, lashing out with a vicious kick that boiled the air and birthed a roiling blast of flames. Iroh plunged through his brother's assault like a swimmer through turbulent water, pushing on ahead not blindly but with grim intent. He met Ozai's next strike with his own, and flames crackled and snarled around them. The paving stones cracked and bubbled. The air shimmered with the heat. Iroh gave himself to the dance, setting aside the weariness of his old body, the fatigue of decades spent campaigning, of months spent running. Old griefs and loves fell away like so much water, boiled up in an instant. He turned aside his brother's furious assault, directing it elsewhere. He moved, and the flames moved with him.

Ozai took to the air with a thunderous roar, fire streaming from his hands and feet. Iroh did not rise to the bait. He fell back, loose and at the ready. His own hair blew freely now. Sweat stung his eyes and ran into his beard. Ozai rocketed higher and higher, flames fanning out in his wake. The sages watched him in silence. He he reached the apex of his flight, a wild expression twisting his chiseled features. For an instant he seemed to hang there, supported by nothing, and then he thrust out a hand and a marble-sized sphere of flame snarled to life at the center of his palm. Heat lightning crackled around him. A shrill whine filled the air. Iroh raised his hands, eyes narrowed, waiting as the noise built and built, scaling upward.

It reached a fever pitch.

Flames burst from Ozai's outstretched hand in an all-devouring torrent that scoured the surface of the plaza. Dust and smoke rose up in choking clouds. Birds fled the palace city, screaming in the carnelian light of the comet. Iroh brought his hands down like a woodsman chopping felled logs, pouring his own fire into a wedge that divided Ozai's firestorm in two. Waves of flame snarled past Iroh to his either side, scouring the plaza to bare earth. He held his stance, brow furrowed in concentration. Smoke and heat shimmers distorted the air.

He never saw Ozai coming.

The Fire Lord burst out of the flames and drove a brutal kick into his brother's chest. Iroh flew back on a fresh wave of fire, breathless and stunned, as his brother landed at a run, arms already flying through the swift, brutal motions demanded by the lightning he struggled to chain and direct. Iroh hit the ground, skidded and came to his feet just as Ozai lunged low and fast, hands extended. Blue light illuminated the entire plaza, banishing the comet's shadows and its radiance in a single moment of actinic flare. Lightning blossomed from Ozai's fingertips. Iroh spun to meet it, absorbing his brother's cold, murderous hate into his own scarred and weathered palm. He saw, in a moment of bizarre extended time, Ozai's expression change from one of furious intent to one of stark surprise. Energy rushed down Iroh's arm, as great as a storm's dying breath on a broken shore. He closed his eyes and let the tempest pass through him, let it course beneath his heart and through his stomach to the waiting conduit of his left hand. Sparks flew from his skin. Current crackled over him. And sorrow. _Always, you force my hand. _Tears stung his eyes and burst into steam.

Iroh saw his brother sitting beside their father at court. He saw Ozai, bursting with pride at fifteen, as he gave his first presentation before the War Council. He saw him hold Azula for the first time, saw him smile as the child wriggled in his arms. And he saw Zuko writhing on the floor of a dueling ring, his face a ruin of burned flesh. He saw his father's body burn as Ozai took the birthright he, the heir, had never wanted. Not without Lu Ten.

The lightning found Ozai.

The Fire Lord burned. His skin blackened and peeled. His bones cracked. Iroh stared, tears running down his cheeks, at the flashes of his brother's skeleton revealed in instants of brilliant radiance. Lightning joined them, a dancing line of blue-white. A banner, like a dragon coiling through the air. Ozai jerked and twitched. Light poured from his mouth, from his eyes. He crumpled, ashes streaming all around him as his body folded like a marionette. His blackened face hit the paving stones with a dull, final _crunch_ of breaking bone.

Iroh let his hands fall to his sides. Sparks snapped and crackled around him. His robe smoldered. The sages looked on in silence, robes fluttering. Overhead, the comet churned the sky and made fire of the clouds. Iroh went to his brother and knelt down on the cracked and glassy stones. He bowed his head to the smoking corpse, to the least-loved son. "I'm sorry, my brother," he said softly. "I wish it hadn't come to this.

"I loved you so."


End file.
